Blind Pilot

Oregon's Blind Pilot fuses the expansive textures of West Coast indie pop with the refined contours of folk-rock, yielding a sonic palette that feels at once close and sweeping. The group surfaced in 2005 and secured broad attention six years later when its second album, the Billboard-charting We Are the Tide, appeared; further praise followed the 2016 release of And Then Like Lions, which climbed high across several Billboard tallies. After an eight-year absence, the band issued its fourth full-length effort, In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain, in 2024.

Portland served as the birthplace for Blind Pilot when singer/guitarist Israel Nebeker and drummer Ryan Dobrowski, who had first connected during college, joined forces and began performing across the northwestern Oregon circuit. Seeking fresh inspiration, the pair moved ninety miles north in 2006 and spent three months inside an Astoria warehouse laying down demos. They subsequently embarked on a bicycle trek from Vancouver to San Francisco, staging concerts and vending EPs en route before returning to complete their debut, 3 Round and a Sound, which Expunged Records issued in June 2008.

Four additional musicians joined the touring ensemble while the band promoted that debut, expanding its sonic reach and lending 2011's We Are the Tide a richer, more layered character. The group later aligned with ATO for its third album, a project that required five years to finish. Still a six-piece, Blind Pilot delivered And Then Like Lions in summer 2016, placing the set inside the Top Ten of the Billboard alternative, folk, indie, and rock charts. Nebeker later confronted creative struggles, including severe writer's block that resisted reading, therapy, and dedicated writing retreats. He ultimately set himself the task of writing the band's next album within one month; produced by Josh Kaufman, In the Shadow of the Holy Mountain emerged in 2024.